Saturday, August 29, 2009

After months of cultivating, watering, and a bit of tender loving care, our tomato plants have finally produced fruit! And not only that, but yesterday I came home to the fun surprise of color! One of our tomatoes has begun to turn RED! Since I've never gotten this far in the gardening process (due to cold weather killing our crops last year) I am QUITE excited that we will be harvesting some home-grown tomatoes! They're a bit bigger than cherry tomatoes but not quite the size of your regular tomato either. I think they are perfect!!Just wanted to let you share in my gardening excitement! And, Dad, this is living proof that you can grow a tomato plant from a seed, AND on a porch in Utah that gets only a good 3 hours of bright, direct sunlight a day! It's a miracle! :)

Tuesday, August 25, 2009

As I sat here for a minute thinking of what I wanted to write about, pondering upon the sad fact that I have no pictures to upload or talk about, what came to mind was my fun weekend!

Considering I'm now working two jobs, one being a full-time 9-5 desk job and the other taking up the rest of my time as I get to manage 6 apartments in Provo. It keeps me busy for sure, but I'm discovering that my needed release--the time when I can forget about everything I have to do for a minute--is the weekend.

And this weekend was no less than outstandingly fun! On Friday night, Trevor and I drove up to Sandy, UT to eat at one of my favorite restaurants from my adolescence: Sweet Tomatoes! There's only two in Utah, so it took a good 30 minutes to get there, but it was SO good and refreshing that it was totally worth it. It was Trevor's first time eating there, and he thought it was pretty good as well.Later that night, we went over to Randy and Jenny's house to play games. Soon after we arrived and played a few rounds of speed scrabble, the Ballards arrived and we decided to play a new game called Curses. Needless to say, it's hilarious, and Trevor got a short clip of it on his iPhone that we'll have to put on Facebook at some point. It's always a fun, inexpensive, and entertaining date to play games with friends!

On Saturday, we packed the day full of fun activities. The morning began with a bit of cleaning and much needed home organization. I did laundry, dishes, made brownies for the ward activity, and sneaked in a quick shower. The ward was having an activity up Provo Canyon at a park where we first went on a hike and then grilled hotdogs and hamburgers. The plan was for both Trevor and I to go on the hike, but, as luck would have it, he had a parking enforcement emergency that caused him to not be able to go. :( What is this emergency you ask? Well, a nice-sized blue bus decided to park itself in Walmart's parking lot in Orem, and they called and asked us to tow it. So then, of course, this thing is so big that Trevor has to search for a tow company with a truck big enough and powerful enough to tow a bus. There's one of them in Utah county, just incase you needed to know. So he had to go down to Orem to supervise this tow. When I was looking for a picture of a big blue bus, I found this picture on google images... and the funny thing is that it has the name of my old school system from North Carolina on the side! I may have, at one point, ridden in this old, blue activity bus! :) Thank you to Wake County Public School System for 13 wonderful years of education. And bus rides!Another thought on this bus matter... I just remembered the time about 6 years ago when my family was driving across the country in my grandparents' RV and we broke down in Nowhereville, South Dakota. Imagine my surprise when AAA sent this little tiny red tow truck to tow our giant RV about 70 miles to the nearest town with my family of 4 stuffed in the front of the little truck's cabin with the driver... I'm pretty sure if THAT old truck could tow an RV, then any tow truck can tow a bus. I guess these tow companies here in Utah are too afraid to try. Weenies.

And now, thanks to my Dad finding this excellent piece of documentation from the past, here is evidence of our adventure in South Dakota! Thanks Dad, for this entertaining piece of history:Well anyway, because Trevor was busy, I went on the hike alone (but with a bunch of friends from the ward, of course!) and it was really fun. A bit challenging, but kind of nice just to be in nature, getting a workout, and enjoying the fresh mountain air. The food later was wonderful and Trevor arrived at the party just in time to eat, chat with friends, play a few rounds of Boggle, water-balloon volleyball, tug-of-war, and real volleyball! :) It was a fun, active afternoon.

Then, around 7:15ish, we made our way back to Provo. On the way back, Trevor was inspired to go check out some local sales at the sports stores on golf clubs. He's looking for a new set for himself. He's decided he wants golf to be his new hobby, and I might join him :) As we looked around, I found this fantastic (and not too expensive) pink set of golf clubs at Sport's Authority. This picture is actually of a different set... but I think I like it better so I may have to find out where I can purchase it.After looking around for a while, Trevor got a call from the Ballards and we went to meet them at Cascade golf course to hit some practice drives at Cascade's driving range. It was my third time to the driving range, and every time I go I love it more and more. I can't wait to rent some clubs and actually play golf for the first time to see if I love the whole game!

On Sunday, I was really sore on my whole left side from golfing. :) Trevor and I also had the opportunity to attend the Oquirrh Mountain Temple dedication. It was a very nice, peaceful experience. Then, at home, we caught up on our busy weekend by taking naps. And long ones at that. :) Now that I'm working during the week, I seriously look forward to all the fun that the weekend brings!

Monday, August 10, 2009

Trevor discovered this a site named Wordle where you can put in your blog or website's URL and it'll make these cool word shapes. This one is what happened when I typed in this blog's URL. I thought it was pretty cute so I'll share it with you!Good night everyone! :)

Sunday, August 9, 2009

For our date last night, Trevor and I drove up to Sandy, UT to go to the Real Salt Lake game against the Seattle Sounders (or, as Trevor thought it was at one point, the Seattle Flounders--haha don't ask!). We bought tickets for the "cheap seats" but honestly, there's no bad seat in that small stadium so it was great!It wasn't too hot or too chilly... just perfect with a light sweatshirt! It was my first Major League Soccer game ever and at first I thought it was going to be boring, but it turned out to be pretty fun! This next picture is one of the "cheering section" that was to our left. These people cheered, danced, played drums, set off smoke bombs, waved flags, and threw confetti for literally the entire 90-minute game, only taking a break at the half. Wow! We thought this picture pretty much sums up the party they were having over there the whole time:So, Real Salt Lake won 1-0! It's always a lot more fun to go to a game where your team wins! :) The funniest part about the whole night was the fact that, when Salt Lake scored their one goal and everyone jumped up and went crazy, Trevor somehow injured himself! Hahahaha... by doing practically nothing more than jumping up and getting excited, he managed to do something to his knee to the extent where he now has to limp around. Talk about getting old! ;) I guess that's what happens when you're almost 25!!!! Despite his major injury, Trevor still had a fun time and smiled for a picture! Miraculously, we got it right on the first shot! :) I'm glad that I married a fun, sweet guy who still takes me on dates. I hope this continues throughout our entire lives!!

Thursday, August 6, 2009

So these are pictures of the three green vases I purchased in the "Golden Zone" in Mazatlan. They were a STEAL! :) So, I couldn't pass up the opportunity and now they add a nice touch to my little Wymount home! They also let you know that my short little end table actually exists--without the vases you wouldn't know the table is there!I purchased the twigs at Michael's and I'm still working on making the heights look good with the vases! :) Give me some feedback and let me know what you think!I just love love love them!!!And just for fun I thought I'd throw on the polaroid of the two of us that Meg took at dinner on the second formal night. I took a picture of the polaroid with my camera, so sorry for the bad quality. I just love it, though! And I bet one day it'll fall out of.... an old journal! :)

Our Family

The Shipps were married on May 3, 2008 in the Salt Lake City, Utah LDS Temple. Alex enjoys reading, listening to music, finding creative projects to do, doing anything on the computer, playing games, baking, shopping, and yoga. T is a hard worker who loves to read, play games, build websites, clean our apartment, golf, and make Alex happy with his contageous smile! He graduated from BYU in August 2011 with a degree in Business Management with an emphasis in Finance. Alex graduated from BYU with a degree in Business Management in April, 2009. Our little Charlie arrived on October, 25 2011 and he is going to have a little sister in June 2014! Welcome to our blog!